Contributors to this edited book consider the normative issues at stake in the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. If future generations are owed justice, what ...
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Contributors to this edited book consider the normative issues at stake in the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. If future generations are owed justice, what should we bequeath them? Is ‘sustainability’ an appropriate medium for environmentalists to express their demands? Is environmental protection compatible with justice within generations? Is environmental sustainability a luxury when social peace has broken down? The contested nature of sustainable development is considered––is it a useful concept at all any longer? Is it reconcilable with capital accumulation? Liberal––particularly Rawlsian––and socialist notions of justice are tested against the demands of sustainability, and policy instruments for sustainability––such as environmental taxation––are examined for their distributive effects.Less

Fairness and Futurity : Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice

Published in print: 1999-04-01

Contributors to this edited book consider the normative issues at stake in the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. If future generations are owed justice, what should we bequeath them? Is ‘sustainability’ an appropriate medium for environmentalists to express their demands? Is environmental protection compatible with justice within generations? Is environmental sustainability a luxury when social peace has broken down? The contested nature of sustainable development is considered––is it a useful concept at all any longer? Is it reconcilable with capital accumulation? Liberal––particularly Rawlsian––and socialist notions of justice are tested against the demands of sustainability, and policy instruments for sustainability––such as environmental taxation––are examined for their distributive effects.

In rich countries, environmental problems are seen as problems of prosperity. In poor countries, they are seen as problems of poverty. This is because the environmental problems in poor ...
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In rich countries, environmental problems are seen as problems of prosperity. In poor countries, they are seen as problems of poverty. This is because the environmental problems in poor countries—such as lack of clean drinking water or decent sanitation—are problems that affect them here and now, whereas in rich countries the environmental problems that people worry about most—largely as a result of current prosperity and economic growth—are those that seem likely to harm mainly posterity and hence violate our obligations to future generations.But what exactly are our obligations to future generations? Are they determined by some sort of ethical system, such as the ‘rights’ of future generations, or justice between generations, or intergenerational equity, or sustainable development? The first part of this book is addressed to these questions. It is argued that while ethical ‘systems’ do not provide much help, we still have moral obligations to take account of the interests that future generations will have. But an appraisal of these interests in the light of probable future developments suggests that, while environmental problems have to be taken seriously, our main obligation to future generations is to bequeath to them a more decent society in which there is greater respect for basic human rights than is the case today throughout most of the world.Furthermore, it cannot serve the interests of justice if the burden of protecting the environment for the benefit of posterity is born mainly by poorer people today. More resources devoted to the environment means fewer are devoted competing claims for, say, health care or education or housing, not to mention plain private consumption. And in poor countries millions of people suffer from acute lack of sanitation, clean drinking water, shelter, and basic infrastructures to prevent or cure widespread disease. Neither generations nor nations are homogeneous entities. The later chapters of this book, therefore, are addressed to the ethical aspects of the way that resources ought to be shared out between environmental protection and competing uses in all countries, and how the burden of dealing with global environmental problems ought to be shared out between rich and poor nations.Less

Justice, Posterity, and the Environment

Wilfred BeckermanJoanna Pasek

Published in print: 2001-05-03

In rich countries, environmental problems are seen as problems of prosperity. In poor countries, they are seen as problems of poverty. This is because the environmental problems in poor countries—such as lack of clean drinking water or decent sanitation—are problems that affect them here and now, whereas in rich countries the environmental problems that people worry about most—largely as a result of current prosperity and economic growth—are those that seem likely to harm mainly posterity and hence violate our obligations to future generations.

But what exactly are our obligations to future generations? Are they determined by some sort of ethical system, such as the ‘rights’ of future generations, or justice between generations, or intergenerational equity, or sustainable development? The first part of this book is addressed to these questions. It is argued that while ethical ‘systems’ do not provide much help, we still have moral obligations to take account of the interests that future generations will have. But an appraisal of these interests in the light of probable future developments suggests that, while environmental problems have to be taken seriously, our main obligation to future generations is to bequeath to them a more decent society in which there is greater respect for basic human rights than is the case today throughout most of the world.

Furthermore, it cannot serve the interests of justice if the burden of protecting the environment for the benefit of posterity is born mainly by poorer people today. More resources devoted to the environment means fewer are devoted competing claims for, say, health care or education or housing, not to mention plain private consumption. And in poor countries millions of people suffer from acute lack of sanitation, clean drinking water, shelter, and basic infrastructures to prevent or cure widespread disease. Neither generations nor nations are homogeneous entities. The later chapters of this book, therefore, are addressed to the ethical aspects of the way that resources ought to be shared out between environmental protection and competing uses in all countries, and how the burden of dealing with global environmental problems ought to be shared out between rich and poor nations.

Tim Mulgan

This book develops a new theory of the obligations to future generations, based on a new Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. The result is a coherent, ...
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This book develops a new theory of the obligations to future generations, based on a new Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. The result is a coherent, intuitively plausible moral theory that is not unreasonably demanding — even when extended to cover future people — and that accounts for a wide range of independently plausible intuitions covering individual morality, intergenerational justice, and international justice. In particular, it is superior to its two main rivals in this area: person-affecting theories and traditional Consequentialism. The former fall foul of Parfit’s Non-Identity Problem, while the latter are invariably implausibly demanding. Furthermore, many puzzles in contemporary value theory (such as Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion) are best solved if strict Consequentialism is abandoned for a more moderate alternative. The heart of the book is the first systematic exploration of the Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. This yields a strong commitment to reproductive freedom, and also provides the best foundation for a liberal theory of intergenerational and international justice. The final chapters argue that while it will include a Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of reproduction, the best overall moral theory is likely to be a composite one, such as the Combined Consequentialism the author developed in The Demands of Consequentialism.Less

Future People : A Moderate Consequentialist Account of our Obligations to Future Generations

Tim Mulgan

Published in print: 2006-01-05

This book develops a new theory of the obligations to future generations, based on a new Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. The result is a coherent, intuitively plausible moral theory that is not unreasonably demanding — even when extended to cover future people — and that accounts for a wide range of independently plausible intuitions covering individual morality, intergenerational justice, and international justice. In particular, it is superior to its two main rivals in this area: person-affecting theories and traditional Consequentialism. The former fall foul of Parfit’s Non-Identity Problem, while the latter are invariably implausibly demanding. Furthermore, many puzzles in contemporary value theory (such as Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion) are best solved if strict Consequentialism is abandoned for a more moderate alternative. The heart of the book is the first systematic exploration of the Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. This yields a strong commitment to reproductive freedom, and also provides the best foundation for a liberal theory of intergenerational and international justice. The final chapters argue that while it will include a Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of reproduction, the best overall moral theory is likely to be a composite one, such as the Combined Consequentialism the author developed in The Demands of Consequentialism.

The minimal model program in algebraic geometry is a conjectural sequence of algebraic surgery operations that simplifies any algebraic variety to a point where it can be decomposed into pieces with ...
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The minimal model program in algebraic geometry is a conjectural sequence of algebraic surgery operations that simplifies any algebraic variety to a point where it can be decomposed into pieces with negative, zero, and positive curvature, in a similar vein as the geometrization program in topology decomposes a three-manifold into pieces with a standard geometry. The last few years have seen dramatic advances in the minimal model program for higher dimensional algebraic varieties, with the proof of the existence of minimal models under appropriate conditions, and the prospect within a few years of having a complete generalization of the minimal model program and the classification of varieties in all dimensions, comparable to the known results for surfaces and 3-folds. This edited collection of chapters, authored by leading experts, provides a complete and self-contained construction of 3-fold and 4-fold flips, and n-dimensional flips assuming minimal models in dimension n-1. A large part of the text is an elaboration of the work of Shokurov, and a complete and pedagogical proof of the existence of 3-fold flips is presented. The book contains a self-contained treatment of many topics that could only be found, with difficulty, in the specialized literature. The text includes a ten-page glossary.Less

Flips for 3-folds and 4-folds

Published in print: 2007-06-01

The minimal model program in algebraic geometry is a conjectural sequence of algebraic surgery operations that simplifies any algebraic variety to a point where it can be decomposed into pieces with negative, zero, and positive curvature, in a similar vein as the geometrization program in topology decomposes a three-manifold into pieces with a standard geometry. The last few years have seen dramatic advances in the minimal model program for higher dimensional algebraic varieties, with the proof of the existence of minimal models under appropriate conditions, and the prospect within a few years of having a complete generalization of the minimal model program and the classification of varieties in all dimensions, comparable to the known results for surfaces and 3-folds. This edited collection of chapters, authored by leading experts, provides a complete and self-contained construction of 3-fold and 4-fold flips, and n-dimensional flips assuming minimal models in dimension n-1. A large part of the text is an elaboration of the work of Shokurov, and a complete and pedagogical proof of the existence of 3-fold flips is presented. The book contains a self-contained treatment of many topics that could only be found, with difficulty, in the specialized literature. The text includes a ten-page glossary.

This book is about the world of parenting and parenthood in the Georgian era. It navigates recent ‘turns’ towards emotions, subjectivity, memory, the body and materiality. This approach reveals the ...
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This book is about the world of parenting and parenthood in the Georgian era. It navigates recent ‘turns’ towards emotions, subjectivity, memory, the body and materiality. This approach reveals the profound emotions provoked by motherhood and fatherhood and the labour and hard work it entailed. Such parental investment meant that the experience was fundamental to the forging of national, family and personal identities. Society called upon parents to transmit prized values across generations and this study explores how this was achieved. All in all, raising children needed more than two parents. At all levels of society, household and kinship ties were drawn upon to lighten the labours of parenting and this book reveals how crucial grandparents, aunts, uncles and servants were to raising children. It also discusses the ways in which parenting adapted across the life‐course, changed by the transitions of ageing, marriage and family, adversity and crisis, and death and memory.Less

Parenting in England 1760-1830 : Emotion, Identity, and Generation

Joanne Bailey

Published in print: 2012-04-05

This book is about the world of parenting and parenthood in the Georgian era. It navigates recent ‘turns’ towards emotions, subjectivity, memory, the body and materiality. This approach reveals the profound emotions provoked by motherhood and fatherhood and the labour and hard work it entailed. Such parental investment meant that the experience was fundamental to the forging of national, family and personal identities. Society called upon parents to transmit prized values across generations and this study explores how this was achieved. All in all, raising children needed more than two parents. At all levels of society, household and kinship ties were drawn upon to lighten the labours of parenting and this book reveals how crucial grandparents, aunts, uncles and servants were to raising children. It also discusses the ways in which parenting adapted across the life‐course, changed by the transitions of ageing, marriage and family, adversity and crisis, and death and memory.

Questions in the 2003 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey were used to compare Islamophobia with four other Scottish phobias: sectarianism (primarily anti-Catholic), and phobias about Europe, Asylum ...
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Questions in the 2003 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey were used to compare Islamophobia with four other Scottish phobias: sectarianism (primarily anti-Catholic), and phobias about Europe, Asylum seekers, and ‘the auld enemy’(England). Social factors affected all phobias the same way, but political factors discriminated. Conservative voters scored low on Anglophobia but high on every other phobia; SNP voters scored high on Anglophobia but not on other phobias. This suggested that Anglophobia itself displaced Islamophobia by providing another target, and that England itself helped reduce within-Scotland phobias by providing Scots with a common, external and very significant ‘other’. Scotland is too small, too peripheral, and too insignificant to play a corresponding role in displacing phobias within England. However, by stimulating English nationalism without providing a truly significant ‘other’, Scottish nationalism may actually increase Islamophobia in England, but not in Scotland.Less

The Auld Enemy

Asifa HussainWilliam Miller

Published in print: 2006-07-20

Questions in the 2003 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey were used to compare Islamophobia with four other Scottish phobias: sectarianism (primarily anti-Catholic), and phobias about Europe, Asylum seekers, and ‘the auld enemy’(England). Social factors affected all phobias the same way, but political factors discriminated. Conservative voters scored low on Anglophobia but high on every other phobia; SNP voters scored high on Anglophobia but not on other phobias. This suggested that Anglophobia itself displaced Islamophobia by providing another target, and that England itself helped reduce within-Scotland phobias by providing Scots with a common, external and very significant ‘other’. Scotland is too small, too peripheral, and too insignificant to play a corresponding role in displacing phobias within England. However, by stimulating English nationalism without providing a truly significant ‘other’, Scottish nationalism may actually increase Islamophobia in England, but not in Scotland.

This book concerns the physics of plasma at high density, which is compressed so strongly that the effects of interparticle interactions, nonideality, govern its behavior. The interest in this ...
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This book concerns the physics of plasma at high density, which is compressed so strongly that the effects of interparticle interactions, nonideality, govern its behavior. The interest in this non-traditional plasma has emerged during the last few years when states of matter with high concentration of energy, constituting the basis of the modern technologies and facilities, became accessible for impulse experiments. The greatest part of the Universe matter is in this exotic state. In this book, the methods of strongly coupled plasma generation and diagnostics are considered. The experimental results on thermodynamic, kinetic, and optical properties are given, and the main theoretical models of the strongly coupled plasma state are discussed. Particular attention is given to fast developing modern directions of strongly coupled plasma physics, such as metallization of dielectrics and dielectrization of metals, nonneutral plasma, complex (dusty) plasma, and its crystallization.Less

Physics of Strongly Coupled Plasma

Vladimir FortovIgor IakubovAlexey Khrapak

Published in print: 2006-11-09

This book concerns the physics of plasma at high density, which is compressed so strongly that the effects of interparticle interactions, nonideality, govern its behavior. The interest in this non-traditional plasma has emerged during the last few years when states of matter with high concentration of energy, constituting the basis of the modern technologies and facilities, became accessible for impulse experiments. The greatest part of the Universe matter is in this exotic state. In this book, the methods of strongly coupled plasma generation and diagnostics are considered. The experimental results on thermodynamic, kinetic, and optical properties are given, and the main theoretical models of the strongly coupled plasma state are discussed. Particular attention is given to fast developing modern directions of strongly coupled plasma physics, such as metallization of dielectrics and dielectrization of metals, nonneutral plasma, complex (dusty) plasma, and its crystallization.

Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics

This chapter considers the question of the responsibility that present day generations bear as a result of the actions of their ancestors. Is it morally significant that we share a national identity ...
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This chapter considers the question of the responsibility that present day generations bear as a result of the actions of their ancestors. Is it morally significant that we share a national identity with those responsible for the perpetration of historic injustice? The chapter argues that we can be guilty of wrongdoing stemming from past wrongdoing if we are members of nations that are responsible for an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. This rests upon three claims: that the failure to fulfil rectificatory duties is unjust; that nations can bear collective responsibility for the actions of their leaders; and that nations are comprised of overlapping generations rather than successive generations. The claim that present day parties should apologise for historic injustice is then considered, and it is argued that such an apology is best understood in relation to an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties.Less

Nations, Overlapping Generations, and Historic Injustice

Daniel Butt

Published in print: 2008-11-20

This chapter considers the question of the responsibility that present day generations bear as a result of the actions of their ancestors. Is it morally significant that we share a national identity with those responsible for the perpetration of historic injustice? The chapter argues that we can be guilty of wrongdoing stemming from past wrongdoing if we are members of nations that are responsible for an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. This rests upon three claims: that the failure to fulfil rectificatory duties is unjust; that nations can bear collective responsibility for the actions of their leaders; and that nations are comprised of overlapping generations rather than successive generations. The claim that present day parties should apologise for historic injustice is then considered, and it is argued that such an apology is best understood in relation to an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties.

This book examines old age as it was culturally constructed in the 19th century. It begins with the agitated relations set in motion when the increasing number of elderly people unable to provide ...
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This book examines old age as it was culturally constructed in the 19th century. It begins with the agitated relations set in motion when the increasing number of elderly people unable to provide adequately for themselves found it necessary to contend with sciences which would classify them, arts which would represent them, and a state which was slow to adopt measures of support. The book analyzes illuminating moments in these relations which are displayed variously in narrative form, social policy and cultural attitudes. It considers the centrality of institutions and of the generational divide; it traces the power and powerlessness of age through a range of characters and individuals as distinct from one another as Dickens's inebriated nurse, Sairey Gamp, to the sober Queen Victoria; it studies specific narrative forms for expressing heightened emotions attached to aging and the complexities of representing age in pictorial and statistical “portraits.” The chapters are organized around major literary works set alongside episodes and artifacts, diaries and memoirs, images and inscriptions, that produced (and now illuminate) the construction of old age through Victoria's long reign. The argument demonstrates that if old age became for the Victorians such a conspicuous public topic and problem, it also became an intensely private preoccupation. The social formation of old age created terms, images, and narratives that lone individuals used to fashion the stories of their lives. The book is intent to respect the specificity of aging: not only the wide diversities of circumstance (rich and poor, urban and rural, watched and forgotten, powerful and dispossessed) but also the distinct acts of representation by novelists, painters, journalists, sociologists and diary-keepers.Less

The Victorians and Old Age

Karen Chase

Published in print: 2009-06-01

This book examines old age as it was culturally constructed in the 19th century. It begins with the agitated relations set in motion when the increasing number of elderly people unable to provide adequately for themselves found it necessary to contend with sciences which would classify them, arts which would represent them, and a state which was slow to adopt measures of support. The book analyzes illuminating moments in these relations which are displayed variously in narrative form, social policy and cultural attitudes. It considers the centrality of institutions and of the generational divide; it traces the power and powerlessness of age through a range of characters and individuals as distinct from one another as Dickens's inebriated nurse, Sairey Gamp, to the sober Queen Victoria; it studies specific narrative forms for expressing heightened emotions attached to aging and the complexities of representing age in pictorial and statistical “portraits.” The chapters are organized around major literary works set alongside episodes and artifacts, diaries and memoirs, images and inscriptions, that produced (and now illuminate) the construction of old age through Victoria's long reign. The argument demonstrates that if old age became for the Victorians such a conspicuous public topic and problem, it also became an intensely private preoccupation. The social formation of old age created terms, images, and narratives that lone individuals used to fashion the stories of their lives. The book is intent to respect the specificity of aging: not only the wide diversities of circumstance (rich and poor, urban and rural, watched and forgotten, powerful and dispossessed) but also the distinct acts of representation by novelists, painters, journalists, sociologists and diary-keepers.

This book posits that retirement security is the central policy concern of our time. A generation of ‘Baby Boomers’ is on the verge of retirement, yet pension systems confront crushing challenges, ...
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This book posits that retirement security is the central policy concern of our time. A generation of ‘Baby Boomers’ is on the verge of retirement, yet pension systems confront crushing challenges, and governments often appear confused about which direction they should move in. The book addresses the question: ‘What are the new risks and rewards in pensions, and what paths can stakeholders chose to solve these problems?’ In doing so, it explores three aspects of the evolution of risk and reward-sharing in retirement in order to offer guidance to pension fiduciaries, plan participants, and policymakers. First, it focuses on new perspectives for assessing retirement risks and rewards. Second, it evaluates efforts to insure retirement plans. Lastly, it provides several new strategies for managing retirement system risk.Less

Restructuring Retirement Risks

Published in print: 2006-08-03

This book posits that retirement security is the central policy concern of our time. A generation of ‘Baby Boomers’ is on the verge of retirement, yet pension systems confront crushing challenges, and governments often appear confused about which direction they should move in. The book addresses the question: ‘What are the new risks and rewards in pensions, and what paths can stakeholders chose to solve these problems?’ In doing so, it explores three aspects of the evolution of risk and reward-sharing in retirement in order to offer guidance to pension fiduciaries, plan participants, and policymakers. First, it focuses on new perspectives for assessing retirement risks and rewards. Second, it evaluates efforts to insure retirement plans. Lastly, it provides several new strategies for managing retirement system risk.